Introducing a Study of Second Chance School Teachers from the Self-reflection Perspective of Discourse Analysis and Ethnomethodology

Abstract

The importance of studying the specific features of the educational environment at second chance schools is supported by the effort to create more effective tools used to introduce marginalised groups into the labour market and, in this way, make sure their socio-economic situation improves. Teachers involved in second chance education at primary and secondary schools take a role they have not been, in the course of their education or existing teaching experience, trained for and which requires that the framework of their competences is re-evaluated. The paper is aimed at suggesting a possible theoretical-methodological perspective in the studies of the teachers involved in second chance education, towards an understanding of their work in the current environment, from their viewpoint, by means of self-reflective tools, especially diaries that mirror their everyday life in educational practice. The present discourse analysis and ethnomethodology is a highly effective approach to sharing a way of constructing identification frameworks and practices in self-cognition and managing the process of education with regard to the specifics of its participants and the delicate nature of the unique and exceptional nature of individual potentials and the continuity of complex dynamics, development, and changes. The presented model of the role of a second chance teacher consists of five levels: 1) self-identification, 2) self-determination, 3) self-interpretation, 4) self-correction, and 5) self-inspiration. Individual dimensions work as discrete fields with their own life and dynamics but, at the same time, do not exclude inter-connectivity.

Keywords

• second chance education
• teacher in second chance education
• reflectivity
• self-reflective methods
• discourse
• discourse analysis